The story behind a Great War postcard - Tony Allen

The Boy Scout - A Hero's Fate Postcard

The
artist Edward Jagger, based this card - titled “A HERO’S FATE.” - on a drawing. Printed details on the back reveal
that it was “Issued through the boy
scout movement...” The remainder of the sentence on the card has been
obliterated with an over‑stamp, but with good eyesight the words “in aid of local relief funds.” can be
made out. Printed by 'Adams Bros. & Shadlow Ltd., printers, Leicester and London',
it was published by 'Castle Studios, Hollinwood.' There is additional printed
information on the card, such as ”THE
BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT OF FRANCE ‑ an episode during the great war.”

More
information about the scout was published in the War Illustrated on 26th December 1914, as well as a similar, but
somewhat different artist’s impression of the hero’s fate. The story of the boy
scout’s death was brought to the attention of readers, it was said, by an extract
from a dead German officer's letter. He allegedly wrote, “A traitor has just
been shot!”

The
officer then told a story of a column of German troops who were marching through
a wooded area in occupied France, when they spotted a boy scout. He was called
over and asked, whether “the French were
about.” He refused to give any information, fifty yards further on the
soldiers were fired on from the cover of some
trees. The scout was held and was asked in French, if he “had known that the enemy was in the forest.” This time he did not
deny it. The letter said what happened next. “He went with a firm step to a telegraph post, and stood up against it,
with the green vine‑yards at his back, and received the volley of the firing‑party
with a proud smile on his face. Infatuated wretch! It was a pity to see such
wasted courage.”

In
1917, the founder of the Scout Association,
Baden Powell, asked in an American magazine called Boys Life in America, “Was
it a wasted death ? I am sure it was not.” The article was titled 'Playing
the game', and in it, the Founder said to his readers, “In France where they live in the anxious atmosphere of war, the boy
scouts have proved themselves to be of sterner, stronger stuff than anyone had
suspected. the stories are endless of the scouts who have got away and joined
the forces in their fighting and have done good work as first aiders to the
wounded men.”

The chief scout told his readers that one case stood out
above all others and told the story of the boy who was shot by the telegraph
post. He went on, “He only had to say
what he knew and he would have saved himself, but he was plucky, he was a
scout. He played the game. He gave his life that he should not give the side
away.” In the eyes of his contemporaries the French boy scout was a hero, and
deemed worthy of remembrance on a postcard, but no one seems to have
remembered his name. Was this because the execution atrocity was a piece
of manufactured story telling - from the British or French propaganda Agencies?